Harsh reality for sickest patients
ICU CONSULTANT SPELLS OUT LASTING EFFECTS OF BEING ON VENTILATOR
The Post has been granted exclusive access to hospital wards across Nottinghamshire to reveal the true extent of the impact of Covid-19. Here, we interview an Intensive Care Unit doctor working at the Queen’s Medical Centre, who speaks of the harrowing reality patients face here. BEN REID reports with photography from JOSEPH RAYNOR.
ONE of the leading doctors on the frontline of the Covid-19 pandemic at Nottingham’s Queen’s Medical Centre has described the true and harrowing reality some patients with the virus face.
The hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is where the sickest Covid patients battle the virus and require around the clock care.
Within the ward, Nottingham’s NHS heroes work tirelessly day and night on the pandemic front lines, determined to keep us safe from the deadly disease despite extremely difficult conditions.
This is the busiest ever time for the health service and there are fears conditions will only get busier and tougher.
Dr Christine Watson (pictured), a Critical Care Consultant and Deputy Head of Service for Critical Care, has described how people can often “wave away” the severity of being on a ventilator as “something that you can shrug off”.
But given the reality Covid patients face on a ventilator, she said: “The reason they’re on it is because they have reached a point where the oxygen levels in their bloodstream are so low that they are completely unable to manage to breathe for themselves.
“They have reached a point where, without that breathing machine, they would effectively become so unwell that the oxygen levels in their bloodstream would drop dangerously low and the rate of their breathing would become so high that their heart and lungs would fail to cope, and their organ systems would start to shut down and eventually their heart and lungs would stop working all together and they would die.
“It’s also really important to stress that being on a ventilator with Covid is not just you’re on it for a couple of days then you’re off it and you’re out running around again.
“Most of our Covid patients who are on ventilators are on them for an average of 10 days to two weeks and then it takes them months to recover.
“Even when they are recovered it takes them months to get back up to what you and I would think of as a ‘normal’ life.
“Even patients who have had Covid at home but have not needed to be admitted to hospital have said to me that they get short of breath when they get to the top of the flight of stairs.”
Dr Watson described how even after the first 24 hours of being on a ventilator, a patient’s breathing muscles start to waste away and break down.
The ability to breathe independently when coming off that breathing machine has deteriorated so patients have to build that back up again which can take months or even years.
“It’s not as straightforward as unfortunately people would like to believe,” she said.
“Being on ICU is not a pleasant thing and being a patient in intensive care is pretty miserable.”
This is not just a virus that affects older people either, Dr Watson was keen to stress.
“We’ve had age ranges from 18 all the way through 20s, 30s 40s 50s - all people.
“The younger patients we have had are not just those with underlying health conditions. These are fit and well young people.
“This is not just a disease of the 70 and 80 year olds - by any stretch of
Even when they are recovered it takes them months to get back to a ‘normal’ life.
Dr Christine Watson
the imagination.”
Health experts have also condemned the conspiracy theorists who say the virus is a hoax and, working on the frontline each day, Dr Watson said that is one of the things she has found most difficult.
“We absolutely know that the vast majority of people are following the rules.
“The thing I have found difficult this time round is the vocal minority, Covid deniers who are ‘I’m alright I’ll do what I like’ - those are the people I would urge just to think twice because it isn’t’ just about you it’s about the other people you might put at risk.
“How would you feel if it was your mum, or your dad or your brother or sister in that position?”